


An Ever-Fix'd Mark

by StudioRat



Series: Nor Shall Death Brag [2]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel
Genre: Demiromantic Link, Demisexual Zelda, Demisexuality, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Food Porn, Foreshadowing, Idiots in Love, Other: See Story Notes, POV Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Pining Link, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Resurrection, Romantic Fluff, Slow To Update, Tags May Change, canon-typical blood, figuring it out together, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2020-06-30 14:26:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19855072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StudioRat/pseuds/StudioRat
Summary: O no, it is an ever-fixed markThat looks on tempests and is never shakenYeah.You read that correctly.It's another blupee.Overlaps the finale ofMadness Most Discreetand occurs some years beforeNaught So Vileand possibly others, who even knows.





	1. Chapter 1

Poets dream sunrise into the beginnings of all things, and no doubt when they sing of how the miasma lifted from the ruined castle, they will paint a beautiful dawn. No matter what tomorrow and the tomorrow of tomorrow become, people will look back through the lenses of art and history to the day war machines fell from the sky, and speak of a new golden era arising from the wreckage of the old.

Zelda stands in the lush green fields of her homeland at sunset, drenched in the intense vitality of her beloved wild. A century of darkness eroded the memory of wildflowers near to abstraction, nothing but words and colors and the echo of knowing a scent attended them. _If I were alone, I might well sit down and cry over **grass**. It is ridiculous - but I never would have believed I could forget something so powerful. How much worse must it have been for him? _

She feels his strength, his steady heartbeat, his easy stride behind her, so familiar and yet unfathomably strange. It is one thing to unfurl her soul for the Light to move through her, and another entirely to stand raw and open in the mortal world, _feeling_ everything. It is not so much that his boots are loud, because they aren’t. His step bruises the grass, encouraging the sweet perfume to rise, but that isn’t quite the problem either. He is careful to keep his body from intruding on the edge of her vision, just as he did before the Calamity rose, when she wasted so many years hating him for being everything he was supposed to be. A valiant knight. A hero. The chosen of the blessed sword. Shadow and guardian to a failed princess.

Words fall from her tongue unregarded. She is babbling, because she cannot fathom how to deal with the resonance of his heartbeat in her bones, so different from the rhythm of darkness and chaos, from the tides of storm and pulse of thunder keeping her steady and centered as she held fast to every ray of Light her soul could hold.

He says nothing.

 _He so rarely spoke to me before the Calamity, how could I expect any different? I felt his emptiness in the dark, his silence - it should be enough to know he is alive and strong and victorious. But it isn’t. I feel him_ **_here_ ** _, but with every breath in this mortal skin it is weaker, exactly as the voice in the darkness said it would be. I felt such joy and pain with every shard of memory he recovered. But how much was really his, and how much was_ **_me_ ** _, burdening him with my own regrets?_

She hesitates to voice the fear. She tells him instead what she learned inside the heart of primeval chaos, how the god of destruction broke free of Hylia’s seal in ancient days. How he answered defeat by a mortal hero and cursed the children of Hylia with war and strife. How Ganon surrendered his divine, immortal form in mirror of his hated enemy to break the seal on his insatiable hunger. How his hatred festered in his prison, how he found cracks in the seal biding his power to slither into the world and overshadow legions of mortal hosts over the ages, willing or unwilling. How he raged every time his avatars were struck down.

How the seal that seemed to hold Calamity Ganon for ten thousand years only did so because he was busy trading the power to incarnate and overshadow a mortal avatar for _one_ opportunity to again manifest his full power in the world as his divine self.

It is a terrible thing to say, and worse to hear, but the champion of Hyrule deserves to know the truth of the horror that consumed his life. 

He says nothing.

Zelda can bear his stoic silence no longer. She turns away from the golden sunset to behold his face with her mortal eyes for the first time in a century. 

His blue eyes reveal nothing. His sharp jaw is taut, his stance drillfield perfect as malicious ichor drips from the bright blessed blade.

 _He has given us all so much. He_ **_must_ ** _feel something, but he wears the same mask as ever - he shoulders the burden of his duty without complaint. I should take his example - but I can’t! I need to know - I need to hear his voice again - I need to see the truth of his heart before this magic fades._ “May I ask? Do you really remember me?”

He strikes the ichor from the sacred blade and returns her to her sheath. Fierce. Confident. Perfect.

He licks his lips. He does not look away from her. He flexes his strong hands. He draws a breath. His beloved baritone is soft. “You were the one thing I wanted to remember.”

Her heart bruises the inside of her ribs with trying to fling itself at him. _I can’t ask - I_ **_shouldn’t_ ** _ask - he’s done so much for me already - what if he feels he_ **_can’t_ ** _refuse?_ “Even though I was horrible to you?”

He offers her the charming, lopsided grin she’s watched him give to a hundred thousand travelers. _Now_ his beautiful eyes slide away, and he rubs at the back of his neck. “Not _horrible_. Rude, sometimes. Stubborn, always. It’s fine. I was just the dumb knight your father forced on you, and you - you are my princess.”

“Oh Link ,” cries Zelda, daring one halting step towards him as her chest tries to cave under the weight of his pain. “ _Please_ don’t say that! I mean - of course you should be honest - so if that’s all I am then - then yes, tell me at once. But you were never _just_ _a knight_ to me. Even when I was angry and stupid and selfish as anything - you were always there for me. You did so much that you didn’t have to - things father wouldn’t have even _thought_ to order you to do and - and maybe it _was_ stupid to imagine it wasn’t _just_ duty. It's over - its finally _over_ and I want you to be free to be with - whichever lover makes you happiest but I-”

“Princess,” he cuts in with a sigh. “You’re rambling.”

Zelda heaves a great sigh of her own and _seriously_ contemplates laying down right there in the open field to let her wretchedness bleed away into the clean earth under her.

“I mean no disrespect, but I too have a question,” he says after a moment, and his words resonate in her heart, stirring bittersweet memories of a long-ago storm that she has held close for a hundred years of struggle against The End. “When was the last time someone held you, my dearest princess?”

Zelda cannot make any words form at all, not on her tongue and not in her mind. She folds her hands over her heart in a vain effort to soften its pounding beat. She stares at their shadows mingling on the grass. 

_Be brave, little bluebird._

She makes herself raise her eyes to his. “I’m so sorry Link - I only led you to that old tree because I wanted to help you know _yourself_. I didn’t mean to make you feel obligated to-”

“Princess,” says Link with a sigh, scrubbing a hand over his face. He takes one step. Another. His eyes are so intense she can’t even breathe.

He pulls her into his arms.

He is warm. 

He is gentle.

He smells of horse and sweat and wool and blood and the immediacy of his mortal physicality breaks her resolve not to cry in front of him.

The magic that has sustained her for a hundred years in the depths of a ravening malice fades to the barest fragile thread of what it was, and it is like all her senses are wrapped in wool. She can smell the grass, but she cannot feel it drinking in the last rays of sunlight anymore. She can feel the wind on her bare shoulders, teasing her hair, but she cannot feel the trees swaying. She can feel her beloved champion only where their bodies meet, and the aching loneliness of it makes her wonder how she ever managed such solitude before the sealing power finally woke. 

_I knew it would happen. Theoretically. The voice of thunder warned me that returning to the world has consequences. Limitations. He promised_ _I would learn to control it by Will eventually. He promised it would return when I truly need it, just as before._

 _Be strong, little bluebird_.

_But I need him-! Why can’t the gods give me just another five minutes-?_

_You are stronger than you let yourself believe._

_I’m not ready to be alone!_

_Have faith in your champion-_

Link holds her close, but his touch is so tentative her hunger only increases. She burrows against his chest, knowing it is selfish. She presses her ear tight so she can reclaim the comfort of his heartbeat in her head as the last thread of magic vanishes.

“Zelda,” he says softly, his beloved baritone resonating through his flesh and tickling her ear. “Every scrap that I have recovered of my old life only confirms: the truth of my heart in this life is the same as it ever was. My heart yearned to comfort and guard you from the first day I knelt before you, until the day I died. I am sorry for the Calamity and everything that has been lost to Malice. I will forever regret how you have suffered for my failures. And also. I consider it a priceless gift that you gave me a second chance to live for you and serve at your side.”

Zelda sniffs and fights to master her tears. “What if I’m _not_ your princess anymore? _Anyone’s_ princess, really. What would you say then?”

He draws a sharp breath. He is still for a long moment.

Zelda listens to the silence of crickets waking up and meadow thrushes muttering in their sleep. 

Link leans back, unwinding his embrace. Ice follows the wake of his touch - but then he touches her cheek. Tucks his fingers under her chin and coaxes her to look at him again in the lowering twilight. His blue eyes wander over her face as he tidies flyaway strands behind her ear and dries her tears with the lightest touch.

Not that it truly makes any difference, for her eyes continue to betray her. She imagines she sees roses in his cheeks and warming his ears. _But that is ridiculous. I saw him with other people, and he never-_

“Dearest heart - why would that ever change my answer?”


	2. Chapter 2

Riding pillion without the proper cushion is not comfortable, no matter what romantic paintings might suggest. Even at a gentle walk, the jouncing is exhausting, and there is the ever-present worry that one will fall off in one or more of three equally terrifying directions.

Two people in one saddle isn’t much better, but there is a part of her that wishes he would hold her in his lap anyway, like he did after her failure at the Spring of Power, when there was still a chance the mad fortune-teller was wrong. She tries to be satisfied with holding his belt, and tries to focus on keeping herself securely on the damn horse. He says they will not be on the road long, though no road whatever lays anywhere in sight. All she can see around them is more gently rolling moon-silvered fields and occasionally black lumpy shapes that probably mean distant trees. He does not tell her where they are going, or why it is important they move quickly. 

_As uncomfortable as a trot would be, I think I should be less likely to fall off - or at least it might hurt less when I do! Why do we need to hurry? The Calamity is over. And with the magic gone, oh-! I am so_ **_tired_ ** _._

She does not say any of this. She watched him ride all over Hyrule in search of shrines and weapons and raw materials and relics. She watched him fight tirelessly. She watched him test the limits of the abuses his body would absorb, and then push himself for more. She watched him sleep in the saddle - and fall off doing so. All without complaint.

Scattered shadows becomes a distinct irregular dark mass, and she is pretty sure it’s a grove of trees. The moon is rising behind her, and their shadows look strange and ominous. Link still says nothing. Zelda glances over her shoulder, trying to remember what season it is and how to calculate the hour by the low angle of the moon.

It doesn’t work.

 _I could ask for the slate - then I would know for sure. But what does it really matter what hour or day or even_ **_month_ ** _it is? The days of appointments and audiences and court and holy rituals are long over._

Zelda sighs at her own foolishness. She tries counting hoofbeats to keep her thoughts from wandering where they shouldn’t. She watches their long shadows grow shorter and the angle drift slowly left until their shadows run beside them. _So - north by northwest of wherever we were, past one of a hundred possible antique banners. In the chaos of battle I didn’t even notice where Calamity manifested. Somewhere mostly flat and slightly higher than wherever we’re going. In daylight, surely I would still know it? Shadows just make everything strange._

Link pulls his heavy dark bay down to a trot, and Zelda peers past his shoulder to find they approach a wide, organic darkness that is _definitely_ trees. “Almost there, dearest.”

Zelda shivers, and her cheeks burn. _What a silly thing to be sentimental over! He added that to the usual honorific well before Calamity - it’s nothing. Stop reading wondertale fantasies into everything._ “Where is ‘there’?”

Link chuckles and shakes his head. He leans back in the saddle, and a few loose strands from his queue tickle her face because she is too slow mirroring him. “A good camp.”

“Oh,” says Zelda, embarrassed and ashamed of her ignorance. “Sorry, I should have thought of that, _obviously_ you’ve had a long day and-”

“Not as long as yours,” he cuts in with a shrug. “Hold on, Darcy’s a sweetheart but she might shy under the canopy.”

Zelda obeys, and is soon glad of the warning. For all his dark bay is sweet and loyal, Darcy is still a _horse_ , and walking into jagged shadows and undergrowth were definitely not on _her_ list of preferred activities for the evening. She frog-hops more than once and tries to rear. Link keeps her mostly in hand - if Zelda had the security of an actual saddle, these little horsey dramatics wouldn’t be remarkable at all.

Nonetheless Zelda breathes a prayer of thanks to any god that might be listening when Link _finally_ decides they can stop. He slides to the ground with such casual grace she almost cries again at her clumsy attempt to follow. He has to catch her, and even hold her upright until her right leg decides to cooperate.

To her surprise, he doesn’t let go of her hand once she’s able to move again. He doesn’t speak, but merely beckons with his free hand and presses _her_ hand with the other. It is strange and wonderful and terrifying as he guides her deeper into the little woods, along the edge of a silvery clearing at the heart. 

But not _into_ the clearing. He stops beside a pair of big fat beech trees, where a cluster of soft little shrubberies grow to one side of the larger tree and the ground rises in a gentle slope to the other. He drops his cloak in a little heap and urges her to sit on it and lean against the tree. He pulls out the slate as soon as she settles. He wraps her in a summoned cloak - it isn’t soft, but it _is_ warm. It smells faintly of lanolin and memoryleaf. She didn’t realize she was cold at all until the cloak offered a contrast to measure by.

_Damn you for being right about flesh anyway, stupid thundervoice._

Nothing answers. 

Zelda wraps the cloak tighter and watches Link build a fire from supplies in the Sheikah slate - the flamespear is a hundred times faster than a flintstrike and nursing along shredded bark. _All the voices claimed they were resigned to whatever fate awaited them at The End, and I suppose I ought to believe them. Even if they were all imaginary. It is better to leave those figments in the past. They were a helpful crutch for enduring the long battle, but that is over, and sane people do not talk to imaginary friends._

 _But what if they_ **_were_ ** _real, once? Link was able to communicate with all the Champions. What if the voices_ **_were_ ** _the spirits of Calamity’s victims and avatars? What happened to_ **_them_ ** _when the Light burned the Malicious One from all the worlds?_

“Stay with the fire,” says Link, brushing his hands on his trousers as he stands. “I won’t be long.”

“The ride wasn’t long either,” says Zelda, then clamps her hand over her mouth in shame. 

Link chuckles at her. “As such things go. Four, five hours. We made good time.”

“ _Five hours_ is good time-?”

“Same road in foul weather is eight, without guardians.” He shrugs and just - walks off toward the bright clearing beyond a handful of smaller trees, where she suspects the sharp edges mean ruins of some kind. Like it doesn’t matter to him that she is - _once again!_ \- acting like an ungrateful child, complaining about his faithful service. 

Zelda hears water sounds even above the hiss and pop of the cheerful campfire. She sees a few torches flare to life just beyond the younger trees, their light screening her view of anything past them. She chides herself for curiosity about a clearing and why not camp _there_ when _obviously_ it is a stream, and obviously the clearing must be the remains of some habitation and he is shielding her from it, as if she didn’t watch Hyrule burn for a century while she waited and prayed the shrine would heal him. 

Except some minutes later when he comes back to lead her past the torches, she discovers it isn’t _that_ either. She freezes, staring at the shattered columns and cracked plaza at the center of the spring-fed sacred fountain. Link presses her hand, but otherwise remains silent and patient. Three of the torches she saw are thrust into the slope beside one quarter of the fountain, and another pair is wedged into the stonework of the footbridges connecting the wall to the plaza.

The Sacred Ground.

Where once knights were sworn and every year hundreds of thousands of people would make their vows to one another before the gods.

They are half a day’s walk from the Castletown walls. Somewhere in the darkness to the north lays the ruined castle. They are two days or more from the rivers east or west, and thus at least two days from the nearest human habitation. “Why here? Of all places, why must you bring us _here_?”

Link offers her a lopsided grin. “It was a bittersweet day, receiving your blessing, knowing you hated having to give it. But - worth it, in the end. Of the secure ground within a few hours’ ride, this is the best. It’s almost nadir, so you’ll have full moonlight soon too. Seems fitting for tonight. A good place for a new beginning.”

“Oh,” begins Zelda, hitching the cloak higher on her otherwise bare shoulders. She struggles to assemble words, frowning at the piles of cloth lined up on the wide edge of the fountain wall. “Why are two of your flameblades in the fountain?”

“Because I thought maybe after a hundred years in the same dress, you might want a bath,” says Link with a shrug. “I don’t remember if you like memoryleaf or lavender or lemongrass or plain fieldherb soap best, so I got them all out. This is everything clean - pick whichever you like best. We can get better stuff in a few days. Don’t worry, I won’t be able to see past the torchlight and the fountain wall.”

“Oh,” whispers Zelda, mortified. She was _filthy_ the day she faced Ganon alone at the castle gates, and everything else about her mortal form has returned exactly as she was then. _Of_ **_course_ ** _I am disgusting! I must smell like ancient mud and char and battlefields and - oh! I never even_ **_thought_ ** _about it and I very nearly threw myself into his arms without so much as a by-your-leave and-_

“Dearest. Your body has to be taught how to understand things again, and the water will probably stir several things at once. Returning to the living world is - strange and hard. I’m here to help, however you wish it. You don’t have to do this yet, if you’re not ready. The water isn’t going anywhere.”

“But you said we had to hurry,” says Zelda weakly.

He offers her the charming, wry grin again, his face shining in the dappled gold-and-silver of torchlight and moonlight. While he prepared the fountain for her, he’d taken the time to wash the blood and ichor from his face and hands, and tidy his queue. “I wanted you to have the moonlight. And time for me to make you dinner and a soft place for you to sleep before your body remembers what to do with being tired.”

 _Dinner-!_ “Gods - I haven’t eaten since - since that night in the Dueling Peaks! I didn’t even think about it after Blatchery Plain - I just _went._ ”

“If you want to rest your feet in the water a little while you think about if you’re ready for more, I will make tea, to start.”

“Tea sounds _divine_ ,” she says, pressing his hand, and telling herself firmly that she has no business whatever thinking about kisses, or how she feels a surge of uncharitable jealousy thinking about how he gave his affections to so many others.

Zelda sits on the worn stone steps in a borrowed cloak to unlace her sandals, watching him return to their campfire. She waits for little voices to nudge her one way or another. The silence in her head is strange and lonely, and she finds she is immensely grateful for each and every spark of the torches, and the gentle moon peeking over the dark trees.

The water is dappled light and shadow, and she cannot bring herself to touch it.

_It is just water-! It is harmless-!_

No voice rumbles reassurance.

 _Why am I afraid of_ **_nothing_ ** _?_

The night gives no answer.

Beyond the torchlight, Link sings to himself, and makes a great deal of noise dragging iron and copper pots and pans from the slate. The mundane domesticity of it shatters the thumping, senseless dread in her bones. Link would never give away his position with an enemy nearby. The Calamity is over, the Malice is receded, the creatures animated by the necromantic power of the Blood Moon are all returned to the dust and bone they came from.

_It is safe. I am safe. It’s just water, there’s no Malice here. He would tell me if there were any danger here. If I ask him to come back, he will. All I have to do is call out, and he will be at my side. I’m not alone._

Zelda takes a deep breath, and steps into the pure waters.


	3. Chapter 3

Taking the jewelry off is easy. There isn’t much of it, and the sweaty, gritty, constricting weight of the cuffs and girdle were annoying from the first morning she ever climbed out of a holy spring without magic inside her skin. She’d grown accustomed to it, mostly, and the pale divots above her wrists testify to just how much of her life had been wasted in futile prayer. 

Twisting her hair up atop her head to keep it from clinging to her skin and making everything worse takes several tries and every oath in her vocabulary. 

She rocks in place on the smooth stone step, just to feel its solidness under her. She clutches the sturdy earthenware tea mug closer, so she can feel the steam on her face again. Link apologized for the plain and common blend of green tea and goldenleaf when he brought it to her, as if she wouldn’t know how steep the price of goldenleaf had climbed in an era when almost no one could afford to tend  _ any _ orchards and nevermind painstakingly pluck young leaves from tree branches at exactly right time for the luxury of a gentle medicine.

As much as his devoted service stings her conscience, worse is her own inability to descend past the third step or unwind her filthy linen dress by the time he brought the tea to her. He hadn’t said anything, but he wouldn’t. Her own frustration with herself lent her just enough momentum to strip the gown off once he went back to tend dinner. But while she now rests her feet on smooth sand at the bottom of the ring-pool, and she has scrubbed her skin raw with the lemongrass soap, she is still  _ sitting _ on the third step.

“This is stupid,” she mutters to her tea for the dozenth time. 

The tea doesn’t answer.

Neither does anything else.

“I should at least be in charge of my own figments. So say  _ something _ you rock-stubborn fool,” she whispers, hoping the hiss and crackle of the torches and cookfire will hide her voice from Link.  _ He is so strong, has borne so much, and most of it alone. I don’t hate him for it anymore - but goddess bright, I don’t like feeling how weak my body is. _ “Tell me one more time all will be well if I just keep going. Annoy me with one of your proverbs. Tease me for fretting. Remind me what feeling this is  _ supposed _ to be like, promise me it will get easier, hold me steady one more time so I don’t go mad. I dreamed you into being. You  _ have _ to answer. I said so.”

Zelda concentrates on the memory of thunder resonating in her spirit, imagines his voice twined with the moonlight moving through her soul. She can weave the daydream no farther than how he would sigh and call her  _ bluebird _ . She waits, she tries to relax her consciousness as he taught her, as she did a hundred million times to draw more Light through herself to keep the Calamity on a short leash, but she can summon nothing more.

“Well fuck you too,” she grumbles, sipping her tea.

But his laughter doesn’t answer.

“You didn’t tell me about the nothingness under the surface,” she murmurs to the night, to Thunder, to Link humming to himself on the other side of the torchlight. She shivers as she says it, partly because thinking about the absence of feeling magnifies the horror, but partly because moving makes the waterline roll over her bare skin, so she can feel the contrast of warm and cool, so the wetness will help her feel the gentle breeze, so she can remind herself she is free. 

The darkness isn’t swallowing her - there is torchlight and moonlight and Link is only ten yards away making something to eat that involves a lot of tapping sounds. The Malice is gone. The moon is not blood-red but pearl-white.

“It doesn’t make sense. I should feel the water, shouldn’t I? That’s what I remember, that it was a comfort to sink into a hot bath at the end of the day. And I  _ know _ he made sure the water would be hot for me,” said Zelda, sipping her cooling tea, hoping if she stays in the water another minute, another five minutes, things will change. “It’s not that I don’t know what hot  _ is _ anymore - I can tell as the  _ tea _ goes from scalding to hot to warm, and I can see the damn steam around the flameblades. But I  _ can’t feel it _ . It’s just - nothing. I can feel the cool wind, colder where I’m wet. For the love of Light, I can feel  _ wet _ . But only  _ out _ of the water. It doesn’t make sense!”

The night gives her no answer.

She listens to Link humming and making incomprehensible metal sounds and wood sounds, delicate crunches and soft ripply wet somethings. She wonders what he is cooking. It smells good - but she can’t say why. She can’t name what it  _ is _ she smells - neither the food, nor the flavor.

She studies the words in her head - savory, sweet, salty, spicy, sour. They are meaningless. She might as well try to define a square without having any concept of lines or angles.

“The only other thing I can say about whatever he’s cooking is it smells  _ nice _ . What even is that? It signifies  _ nothing _ . How is it fair that a hundred years in that horrible  _ thing _ made  _ me _ completely stupid and after  _ aeons _ bound up in it  _ you _ still got to be a an eloquently obscene wiseass? How you even crawled out of my imagination I’m sure I have  _ no _ idea - but shouldn’t I have at least  _ some _ of that still?”

The visceral pop and shudder and scrape of Link opening an iron pot reaches talons through her ears to rattle her brain to pieces. Two breaths later a dizzying wave of indescribably compelling scent rolls through her, and startling, slick, sodden  _ wet _ is welling up under her tongue. Another scrape and gentle hiss. A wave of something different mingling with the first thing makes her insides seem to knot themselves around her spine. The aching tension from the long ride and longer battle spreads and digs deeper, crawling and tingling and painful and strange.

Zelda cups water in her hand and splashes it over her face, but despite the shock of the cold night air on newly wet skin, the overwhelming sensations remain. She drains her mug and fumbles to set it aside. She struggles against the pull of earth and darkness and clinging formless nothing to scramble out of the ruined spring-fed pool. “What is it? Why can’t I  _ tell _ ? Goddess bright make this stupid body stop shaking - I have to manage  _ socks _ and  _ buttons _ and I need to know what that  _ is _ .”

Zelda finds a loose white shirt in the tidy piles of his clothes and pulls it over her head - but the placket hangs  _ far _ too deep and she can't muster the patience to make sense of the laces. She throws a wine-colored tunic over it that she won’t have to button - the vents cut very high on her hip, but the shirt fills that in just fine, and the combined hems fall lower than her fingertips reach. She decides this is good enough to answer the immediate question of  _ what is the smell _ that’s driving her mad. Socks can wait.

Link kneels with his back to her, whistling and stirring a pot of something pale gold that clings to the spoon. More than a dozen covered pots and bowls stand in a crowded arc on the blanket to his left, but in the center of the arc, steaming away on a square of pristine white linen, is a perfect, golden brown, slash-and-seed adorned round of bread. 

“ _ That _ ,” murmurs Zelda, edging closer to the blanket.  _ That’s the smell. Bread. Such a simple thing - and absolutely  _ **_intoxicating_ ** _. Is it savory or sweet or both? Is this a kind I ate before? I don’t particularly remember being partial to bread, but maybe I forgot? _

Link turns with a wordless query that becomes a strangled, awkward cough. He leaves the spoon in the pot to thump his chest and catch his wind again. His face is red from kneeling over the fire, and he has smudges of flour on his tunic.

“Is it ready to eat-?” Zelda points at the little loaf, embarrassed to be so greedy, but she is salivating even worse than before and she  _ needs _ to  _ know _ what bread tastes like again. 

“Ah - too hot -  _ just _ took it out of the fire. Let me - ah - cut it. To cool faster. More tea?” Link stammers and rubs at the back of his neck, and fumbles with the slate.

“Plain this time. No emptying your pockets for medicine I don’t need. How long will it take? The bread, I mean. To be cool.”

Link stares up at her, his soft blue eyes wide but unreadable. “You  _ do _ need it. But. There’s no hurry. Not going anywhere. Have provisions for weeks - can stay here as long as you like.”

“What have provisions to do with anything?” Zelda shakes her head at him, fighting the urge to curl up around the ache in her middle. “How long until the bread is ready?”

“Um,” says Link, blinking up at her, brows high. He gestures vaguely to the blanket, motioning in a way that probably translates to  _ ‘sit down?’ _ . 

“That’s  _ not _ an answer,” she grumps at him, propping her fists on her hips. “Can’t you just tear it open?”

“Uh,” says Link. The idle slate goes dark in his hands. “Princess-”

Zelda waits for him to continue, but not very patiently. She is tempted to just grab the loaf and tear it herself.  _ But what if it burns? Then I will look even  _ **_more_ ** _ stupid,  _ **_and_ ** _ he will be upset that I am hurt  _ **_and_ ** _ that I didn’t listen and - oh why can’t he understand? I  _ **_need_ ** _ it. _

Link draws a deep breath. Sets the slate aside. Ignores the fact his cooking spoon is slowly sinking in its bubbling golden bath. Uncovers a small bowl of fluffy golden paste. Reaches over the other bowls and pots for the bread. He tears it in half, and in half again. He pulls the streaming, soft-looking wedge apart, waving it in the air, then plunges it into the little bowl. 

_ Who cares about the bowl? I need the  _ **_bread_ ** _. Unless this is about cooling it faster?  _ Zelda frowns in confusion as he rises. There remains an intensely pink cast to his face and throat and ears - it actually seems worse, even with his back to the fire. 

“Princess,” he begins again, his voice rasping strangely. “Um.”

“Yes? What?”

Link clenches his jaw and looks away. Not for long - he is fishing part of the little shredded piece of bread out of the bowl - he meets her eye as he offers the morsel in his fingers. Soft. Glistening. Golden brown. 

Zelda takes a bite.

Everything that is not the sweet, savory, soothing delight on her tongue ceases to exist. A part of her mind says:  _ butter. The bowl is  _ **_butter_ ** . 

Another reminds her is is unbecoming and undignified to moan.

Zelda takes another mouthful of bliss from his fingers anyway.

“ _ Oh _ my princess,” whispers Link. 

“Mmm?” 

“You look radiant. Forgive me,” he stammers.

“Wha’ for?” Zelda knows it is rude to talk with her mouth full but she is too busy trying to savor this sublime flavor to bother with proper manners. She feels absurdly giddy eating fresh buttered bread from the hands of her fierce Champion.

“For wanting to kiss you right now,” he whispers, holding up another lump of soft brown bread in his fingers.

“Oh,” says Zelda, as prickly heat kindles under her skin. The bread is still oozing rich, savory butter and the robust, earthy sweet-sour of red wheat and dark rye over her tongue, but she makes herself finish the bite.  _ A kiss! From  _ **_him_ ** _! I’ve never kissed anyone. And I’m not counting hand-kisses and cheek-kisses from my friends in Gerudo Town or flirts at court. That’s different. He’s talking about  _ **_kissing_ ** _ -kissing.  _ **_Lover_ ** _ kissing. That he’s done a million times and is probably an expert at like everything else he does and here I am not knowing a thing. I will make a fool of myself _ .

“Sorry,” he murmurs, dropping his eyes. He gestures with the piece of buttered bread and the little bowl of butter, urging her to take both. 

“No, it’s ok,” says Zelda, though her thoughts are babbling and howling and urging her to run away from this terrifying embarrassment. “I don’t know what to say or do though, those things are all theoretical. I mean, I have the data of  _ observation _ , but  _ doing _ is diff-”

“Princess,” he cuts in softly, looking up at her through his long lashes -  _ why does he get to have such soft features? It’s not fair. He’s a knight, by all rights he should be hard and rugged _ . He lowers his hands, returning the bread to the bowl of butter. “You’re rambling.”

Zelda sighs.

Link takes a little half-step closer.

_ Goddess bright, why is it hard to breathe? Oh dear - oh my - what do I do? What am I supposed to do? Which way am I supposed to move?  _ **_Am_ ** _ I supposed to move? What if- _

His breath tickles her skin as he leans close, casting the thread of her thoughts into a hopeless tangle. 

_ He smells different - still a bit of horse and wool - but now clove and pine and spicewood - how do I know that when I couldn’t identify something as simple as bread? Why is it different? _

His lips are silk-soft brushing against hers. He presses his tender lips against hers gently - so gently it’s  _ maddening _ \- she feels his indrawn breath on her cheek, his nose tickling against hers. He is pulling away.  _ But that was so small! Is that all there is? Just a tiny touch? Surely not - that’s not how he was with other people - never anything so brief. Do something you fool! Stop him - that wasn’t a real kiss at all! Make him do it right _ .

What her tongue actually  _ says _ is: “Not fair.”

Link pauses, his face still so close to hers she can’t look at him properly, even crossing her eyes. He doesn’t speak.

“I'm not made of glass,” she says. 

He answers with a sharp indrawing and his free hand rising to trace the line of her jaw as he leans close a second time. His lips are warm and the tender pressure makes it hard to breathe and it is like the tactile goodness of biting into fresh bread but in reverse. Her lips part as the pressure lifts a little - but this time he is not pulling away, only making room to bring his lips against hers again. And again. His tongue grazes her lip, like he is testing the heat of tea before taking a drink. 

_ Oh _ , is all she can think.

Without conscious direction to govern anything anymore, her body seizes control and echoes his movement. He whimpers at the first one, and again when she tastes him - apple-sweet and butter-soft - cupping her cheek so tenderly. He kisses, and  _ she _ kisses, and her heart is thrashing about inside her ribcage and she aches to be wrapped in his strength again, to feel his warmth against her skin.

He doesn’t embrace her though. Only caresses her face and goes on kissing her with a tentative gentleness that reminds her a little of watching him with Paya. Except less so. Because he is not pulling her hair down from its untidy knot, or sliding his hand over her neck or shoulder or back or chest. She does not have a wrapped jacket to be unbelted and opened, he is not ghosting his hand under the hem or cuff of her shirt, and there is no bed to lead her to. 

Zelda is embarrassed to think of that  _ now _ , of the things he is  _ not _ doing, of the things he does  _ not _ want from her, of the unjust covetous hurt she often felt in the first year or two of his awakening when he stepped away from his quest to spend time idling with strangers while she held back chaos and doom alone.

_ Or maybe  _ **_not_ ** _ alone after all, but among ghosts. Thunder helped with fighting through the jealousy, and I thought I was over that nonsense already! I was happy for Paya! She was so joyful and kind! He looked so peaceful with her! Why is it those thorns are trying to grow back  _ **_now_ ** _ , when I  _ **_should_ ** _ be paying attention to what he  _ **_is_ ** _ doing, and being grateful.  _

_ It feels so nice - what a word! - but every breath makes me  _ **_want_ ** _ more of his touch - and also I want more bread - and also I want to know what the other thing is - and - oh, the scent has changed. It’s not as nice as it was. I should say something. Soon. After this one - oh, my ear tickles. Just one more _ .

Link pulls away instead of granting her unspoken wish, panting. His beautiful eyes are closed, and sweat beads his forehead. He rolls his thumb over her cheek once more. Withdraws.

“Link,” she begins, not yet sure what she means to say.

“Dearest Princess,” he says, his soft baritone grown rough at the edges of his words. “Your stomach is rumbling.”

“Oh,” says Zelda, mortified. It is true. Now that he points it out, like her filthy dress, she  _ notices _ it with excruciating clarity.

“Your body is waking up. You will be sick if you don’t eat more, and soon. You should - start with soup.”

“Oh,” says Zelda, licking her lips of the last traces of butter - and smoothing over the tingling absence of his touch. “What about bread?”

“A little more will be ok,” he says, nodding. Stepping back. Offering the little bowl of butter with its blanket of shredded bread bits. 

Zelda accepts it only when he glances up at her. “What about dessert?”

Link snorts in wry amusement. “Later. I have a surprise for that. Soup first. And more tea.”

Zelda sighs. “Why must you always be so infuriatingly  _ good _ and  _ dutiful _ and  _ stoic _ ? It’s not fair. No one else could ever hope to match the standard you set.”

Link shakes his head at her. “It’s not about duty  _ or _ virtue, my dearest Princess. I just - I know your time in the Calamity was different than my century walking the borders of death, but I do know what it’s like when you have to re-learn the language of your body. I  _ want _ to help. I don’t want you to be hurt or sick. I - maybe  _ also _ have a selfish need to see more of that radiant pleasure on your face when you taste things you like, so I can make them for you again and again every day.”

“Um,” says Zelda, smoothing her borrowed tunic in idle fidgets. “I’m pretty sure that’s the opposite of selfish.”

Link answers with a lopsided grin. “Dearest. You have  _ no idea _ how wrong you are. Please, sit, and let me feast you.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As is traditional with blupees, my hand slipped while attempting to rebuild backlog for [East Wind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5746192) and finalizing the actual [Mischief](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16680598/) chapter that was actually due twenty minutes ago but which if I finish in the next 23 hours will still count as in the neighborhood of "on time".
> 
> Enjoy.

Cream lays heavy on the tongue, but leaves silk in its wake. Roast pumpkin alone is sticky and stringy and gritty and bland and unpleasant, but stewed in cream with spices it tastes like the feeling of being warm. The same spices in warm apple cider kindle still more warmth inside her skin, and the lingering sweetness of it makes the savory bread-and-butter even more delightfully intense. 

Link takes the bread away when she has emptied the petite mug of soup. He says she should rest, and drink water, but not too much. Zelda  _ tries _ not to be annoyed. Her stomach rumbles in protest. The water is cold and boring and she is not thirsty. She wants the bread back, and she wants to know what is in the other dishes.

_ He _ does not eat yet, but only drinks tea. “How many holes do I need to add to the belt?”

Zelda frowns in confusion. 

Link clears his throat and rubs at the back of his neck as if he is  _ nervous _ . With  _ her _ . “For the pants. I can punch extra holes in the belt I gave you so you can make the pants fit until I can buy you better at a village.”

“Oh,” says Zelda, cheeks hot with embarrassment.  _ Now _ she realizes he is  _ embarrassed _ to sit beside a half-dressed Princess. Why he insisted she wrap herself in a blanket when she sat down. “I doubt that’s necessary. I didn’t try any of the trousers, I was in a hurry because of that bread. Which you’ve taken away. Which is  _ rude  _ because it was  _ tasty _ and it is  _ not _ going to make me sick. It’s  _ bread _ . The most harmless food in the world. But anyway, if your trousers  _ don’t _ fit me I very much doubt it will be in a direction the belt can help with.”

“Oh,” he says, blushing and reaching for the slate. “I have taller socks. It won’t be fashionable, but if you will be ok borrowing my newer riding boots - the tall black ones - no one will notice the pants are too short.”

Zelda snorts and sets the little earthenware cup of water aside. “I wasn’t teasing you for your height. I  _ meant _ that  _ I _ have  _ hips _ , Link. You don’t.”

Link blushes harder, tapping the slate furiously. “It won’t be warm enough. And they’re even shorter. But I have  _ one _ clean sirwal. The Gerudo design them very loose for me. And you can maybe - tie a shawl or three overtop. And wear the really long yak’s down socks from Tabantha.”

“I’m not that cold, really. You worry too much,” says Zelda with a little smile. “ _ Now _ can I have the bread back?”

He shakes his head and refuses to look at her. “Too soon. Your body will reject  _ everything _ if you don’t let it adjust. Please at least  _ try _ the sirwal?”

Zelda snatches the bright patterned cloth from his hands as soon as the slate produces it and storms back to the fountain in petulant fury. She knows he is only trying to help but she doesn’t  _ care _ . She does not want coddling  _ or _ tyranny from him or anyone ever again. 

Thunder would never give one single grain of a goddamn what she did or didn’t decide to wear. If he  _ was _ a ghost, he certainly didn’t seem like he’d have been concerned with propriety or rank or presentableness or respectability in life. And he  _ wouldn’t _ have taken her breakfast away like some hovering lady’s maid. Probably. 

He might take it just to provoke her though. 

Zelda grumbles, and digs through clothing, and grumbles more. She is right about most of his trousers, but while the sirwal is not flattering in the least, she  _ is _ able to secure the drawstring, and after some struggle she divides the triple layers of his snowquill gear. Undignified wriggling eventually gets the itchy-slick black outer layer on over the sirwal and even  _ buttoned _ . She doesn’t feel any interest in trying to keep coat sleeves out of her food, but she drapes a shawl crosswise over the tunic and laces the Rito-style leather cinch over top of that. 

For  _ propriety _ .

His boots fit better than she expected, but she stomps her way over the cracked footbridge and overgrown cobbles anyway. It doesn’t actually make her feel any better. Especially when she sees Link is sitting on the far side of the little cookfire with his head in his hands.

Zelda is still angry and annoyed with him for being so - so  _ something _ . Fussy. But at the same time, she knows it is because of  _ her _ that the Champion of Hyrule - the legendary warrior who brought an ancient, primal evil to its knees, the beloved hero - sits alone and hungry in the dark in despair. She feels guilty at the same time she feels angry. She catches her lip in her teeth and remembers the brief, intriguingly soft feel of him. 

She hesitates.

She does not hear any voice in her spirit, encouraging or sardonic or otherwise.

She remembers how Thunder used to tease ‘his bluebird’ to be strong and brave and bright.

She wishes he was real and could say it to her  _ now _ .

Zelda crosses the rest of the way to the fireside. “Is this better?”

Link shrugs. He does not look up at her.

“Link,  _ please _ . I don’t know your thoughts anymore, even a little.  _ Tell me  _ what’s wrong. Tell me why the tunic  _ you  _ offered me wasn’t good enough, and tell me at once if this  _ also _ upsets you before I sit down. Ok?”

“It’s not the tunic,” mumbles Link. He scrubs his hands down his face as he looks up at her, squinting through the firelight. “But thank you.”

Zelda frowns. “For what?”

“Helping me keep what’s left of my honor. I didn’t expect it to be - quite like this,” he says, gesturing vaguely. “You look nice.”

“I  _ look _ like a vagrant,” she returns with a laugh. “Say a little prayer I don’t rip all the seams when I try to sit down - and  _ please _ tell me  _ someone _ still makes  _ reasonably _ forgiving knit trousers in this age.”

Link breathes an actual, honest-to-Three prayer, his blue eyes flaring wide. “Maybe I should use the traveling rune.”

Zelda tips her head, frowning at him. “Leave  _ now _ ? For what? And why go by slate now, at midnight, when we had to ride  _ here _ ?”

“Because even at midnight  _ someone _ will answer their door in Hateno Village when  _ I _ knock on it, and  _ someone _ will sell me clothes that will fit a pretty woman, and I didn’t use it before because I don’t know if the rune will take two people and I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t want to leave you all alone and I don’t - I - I  _ really _ need to get you clothes. Different ones. Safe ones. Goddess bright -  _ why _ did I not think of this before I went into the castle sanctum?”

Zelda frowns harder. She does not like things that don’t make sense. “ _ Safe _ clothing? Link  _ please _ . It is  _ not _ that cold, and I am  _ not _ made of glass and-”

“And a  _ knight _ does not permit lustful thoughts about his princess-!” Link shouts, uncoiling from the ground with violent grace. “ _ There _ . You and your damn fire to know  _ everything _ about  _ everything _ . You have discovered my shame.  _ Happy? _ ”

“Oh,” whispers Zelda, and her skin is weirdly hot and cold and shivery and tight and her insides clench in a way she completely forgot they could. 

She is distracted from the moment by the faded shadow of memory of the first time it happened. The first time he cooked for her, which was also the first time he wrapped her in his cloak, under the questionable shelter of the stone dragon guarding the Spring of Courage. She thought it some annoying consequence of the cold waters at the time. 

But it happened again. 

Not often. 

Always, it happened with him.

She never understood it.

After the Calamity, she did not have  _ insides _ to trouble her anymore, but there was a way her spirit would shiver and spark and roil like a forgotten teakettle on the stove sometimes when Thunder talked to her, and a few times after Link finally awakened.

Zelda discovers a new theory.

She isn’t sure she wants to test it just yet. But a part of her is suddenly babbling and throwing her thoughts into chaos and demanding  _ more data _ and demanding it  _ now _ .

“Maybe you should ask your so-called-Princess if she  _ minds _ , before you get so angry,” she says.

Link says nothing. His eyes reflect firelight and moonlight and agony.

“So - I may not be very good with people,” says Zelda with a wry grin.  _ Understatement of the century. Ha! Thunder has  _ **_completely_ ** _ corrupted my manners, whatever he was. _ “My specialties were botany and mechanics and thealogy, for all the good that did anyone. But I know at least a few useful things about minds and bodies and I can promise you both are  _ entirely _ likely to listen to one’s wish about as well as a spoiled toddler listens to her governess at bedtime.”

Link groans and curses the moon and the stars and the trees and the wind, pacing a tight circle. “Your perfect damn compassion  _ isn’t _ helping. A swordsman must have control of himself or he is  _ dead _ and everyone he protects falls with him. I failed you once already. An  _ honorable _ man troubles  _ no one _ with the burden of  _ his _ desire, and he  _ never _ allows some base  _ physicality _ to cheapen love.”

Zelda has never heard so many words from him at once, and can remember few as passionate. She is shocked. She is hot and cold. She wishes he would be less angry. She wishes he would smile again. She does not know what to say. She tries to imagine what normal people would say at such a moment. 

What her tongue actually produces is: “Does it though? Must it? How do you know?”

Confusion dillutes his anger. “Does what?”

Zelda sighs. She is not at all sure it is wise to give any attention whatever to an accidental theory. She does anyway, because he asked, and he deserves honesty from her, even - perhaps especially - at the cost of her frayed dignity. “Does wanting or having sex  _ actually _ diminish or impede love, or one’s capacity to know it? Sometimes? Often? Always? Or is this another correlative oversimplification? What data do we actually  _ have _ , objective  _ or _ anecdotal?”

Link says nothing, only gestures helplessly.

“Ok, fair.  _ Maybe _ midnight isn’t the  _ best _ time for science. I haven’t any notebooks anyway and  _ you _ have the slate. So. How about more bread?”

Link utters a strangled, wordless sound and throws his hands in the air in surrender. He paces, and argues with himself or maybe the gods in silence and look and gesture. He  _ also _ brings her another wedge of no-longer-steaming-but-still-warm bread, and the dish of butter with it.

Zelda indulges a meditative bite. It is still delightful. She decides she is glad to learn this simple and accessible pleasure. She cannot imagine how she lived her whole life without noticing it. “What’s in the rest of these dishes? Will you eat  _ with _ me now?”

Link shakes his head at her. Either his sudden flare of anger has burnt out, or he has smothered it for now. Probably the latter. “How do you change directions so completely in  _ two seconds _ ?”

Zelda grins. “Dearest hero. Science is  _ all about _ changing directions. You have asserted a ‘universal’ rule  _ completely _ unsupported by fact, and to which every reason and sensibility of mine objects. Therefore:  _ science _ . And empty stomachs make for bad science.”


	5. Chapter 5

Nearly two dozen bowls and plates stand on the bright rug, and no two hold the same thing.

There is beef soaked in wine and seared in a blanket of salt and spices, then roasted in butter. When Link cuts into it for her, the meat is richly pink, oozing, tender. The outer edges are far too salty alone, but he carves perfectly balanced little wedges for her of crust and heart that nearly melt on her tongue.

There is poultry roasted with herbs and lemons and a dash of Goron spice. Link offers her tiny slices of light and dark meat, both savory and hearty and pleasantly tangy. The best bit is the crunchy golden skin. He laughs, and takes that plate away far too soon.

There is white fish and pink fish. Rabbit and ham and goat and lamb. None of the servings are much larger than her hand, and Link does not let her eat more than a few bites of any of it.

Between each of these things, he insists on water or tea or cider, and a different cooked plant. Some are sautéed in butter, some are grilled with herbs, some are fried. There is a bowl with six different root vegetables smashed together with cream and butter. Artichokes and tiny cabbages smaller than a green rupee and sharp radish carved into rosettes all tumble in a graceful heap beside bright honeyed beets and carrots. Four different kinds of sliced and sautéed mushrooms lay in four little heaps on a bed of spinach.

Link offers her peas and beans in their shells and out, fried onions and grilled squashes. He teaches her that cactus pads are delicious roasted, and their fruit is sweet and light. He teaches her that erisfruit and vinegar transforms cabbage, and he teaches her that soft dark spinach leaves become something divine in a pot of farm cheese.

Zelda learns that eggplant is vile. Link laughs and takes the bowl away immediately, offering her a slice of strong cheese to banish the flavor. He takes the offending vegetable to the other side of the fire and  _ hurls _ it into the night. He then dumps every raw eggplant from the slate, and throws those also, one after another. 

Zelda discovers that laughing too long actually  _ hurts _ .

It is a small price to pay, for Link smiles at her. He returns to sit beside her and pats her knee, chuckling at her helpless giggles. He wraps his arm around her shoulders when she collapses against his side, vainly trying to regain her composure.

He does not hurry her. He offers her a soft handkerchief, and of course his quiet strength.

When she is at last able to breathe again, he begins to pull his arm away. Zelda catches his hand before he can retreat more than a few inches. “Not yet. I like this one.”

Link coughs. He lets her pull his hand back to where it was - lets her wind herself even tighter into a full side-hug.

Which is barely a hug at all, really, but it’s good anyway. “Can you reach the bread?”

Link sighs. “It is not a good idea. It will be too heavy if you eat any more of it now.”

“Nonsense. A bite of meat is twice or thrice the weight of a bite of bread,” Zelda counters, poking his side.

Link utters a startled  _ meep _ .

“Oh?” Zelda prods him again, ever so lightly. 

Link voices a garbled and somehow mournful objection, in no way resembling words. His whole body tenses, and he closes his fist around a fold of her shawl.

“Fascinating,” she says, tracing a fingertip down the side seam of his tunic.

He squirms, he gives a strangled teakettle shriek, and when she glances up, he’s caught his lip between his teeth and his face is grown charmingly pink.

“How can a knight be so ticklish? Isn’t that dangerous?”

Link whines as she walks her fingers over blue lambswool, exploring the extent of this delightful discovery. His voice is strained, and he stammers. “It hasn’t really tended to come up. Until now. Apparently. Princess, please-!”

“Please what?”

Link swears and tries vainly to wriggle his body away from her hand without reclaiming his arm.

Zelda relents with a giggle, amused by the stoic champion rendered breathless and helpless. She did not expect to find him vulnerable. None of the people she’d watched him with ever seemed to have found this little quirk.  _ Or - maybe they  _ **_did_ ** _ find it by accident,  _ **_once_ ** _ , but who would have the courage to tickle  _ **_The Champion_ ** _?  _ “Why did you make so much food if you were going to keep me from eating hardly any of it?”

Link pants for air, scrubbing his free hand over his face. “You Can have more, but you must go slow. It’s not wasted - I will put everything in the slate for later. You can have more vegetables now, if you still feel meal-hungry.”

“I don’t know how I would know the difference. But aren’t you hungry? You’ve barely nibbled half of what I have, and you  _ fought _ all day.”

Link goes from rubbing his rosy face to rubbing the back of his neck, looking away from her. “I know it’s rude. I know it breaks protocol and manners. But I ate some while I was cooking. I had to. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I feel better knowing you took care of yourself. Too often in your travels you  _ didn’t _ . So I worried.”

“Oh,” says Link, almost too quietly to hear. His face remains flushed. “Sometimes I heard your voice from everywhere and nowhere. But I didn’t think - I mean, from the moment His Majesty revealed his nature, I wondered. After the first Divine Beast, I worried. Tried to prepare for it. But I’m not smart. I never thought for a moment your spirit would - watch  _ everything _ .”

“Oh,” echoes Zelda. “You’re embarrassed? Why? How can you be  _ ashamed _ that you aren’t some storybook perfection, some tireless and single-minded machine?”

“No. I mean,  _ yes _ , but also  _ no _ . What must you  _ think _ of me,” he says in a tone of abject horror. He pulls away, and this time he does not let her touch stop him. She cannot be sure with the unsteady firelight, but as he stands, fists clenched, he seems to be shaking.

The hero. 

_ Shaking _ . 

Zelda folds her hands in her lap, watching him, trying to think.  _ What would Thunder say right now? To me? To him?  _ “What I think is: the age of strict manners and reverence for the mere circumstance of someone’s birth died with my father. For all the very real horrors Calamity brought, this  _ one _ consequence I cannot regret. Maybe I do have a drop of divine blood from some long-ago foremother. But I  _ cannot  _ be the only one. Most of my ancestors had siblings, and many children of their own - and over thousands of years, surely even more children were born outside of blessed marriages. Who is to say any Hylian might not be able to channel the Light as I have, given time and training and the agony of their beloved in mortal peril?”

“Nonono. The title doesn’t matter. It’s not the rank, it’s  _ you _ .” Link groans and tugs at his hair, turning his back to her. “You.  _ You _ saw  _ everything _ . Oh  _ why _ couldn’t the boar have finished it? Curse the day I woke with your golden voice in my heart!  _ Why- _ ”

“You are not listening. Why should anything about your journey change my deep regard and affection for you? Is this another foolish superstition about sex?”

“ _ Princess _ ,” wails Link.

“That sounds suspiciously like a yes,” she counters primly, folding her arms. As much for a shield against her own renewed weeds of jealousy as against his objections. “I didn’t  _ mind _ , you know. It was rather informative, actually. It isn’t as if anyone ever talked  _ honestly _ about those things around highborn maidens back then. The voices in the Calamity found you rather amusing. If anything about your leisure time was a lasting annoyance, I would say it was the inevitable wagers. Sometimes we could make them be discreet, but sometimes he was just as lewd-minded as any of them.”

Link moans in agony, wavering on his feet, broad shoulders bowed.

“Please, come back to the fire.  _ Why _ are you so upset? You seemed to be rather cavalier about these things in your travels, always confident and easy in your skin and knowing exactly what to do. Why is this any different? I am not really a princess of anything, now. And now that the Calamity is unmade, we neither of us answer to anyone. Your knightly vows are fulfilled. I don’t understand.”

“I can’t,” he stammers. “I am your sworn knight, and I have failed. I have not upheld that duty in fidelity or chastity or humility or valor. A common line soldier has more honor than I. I keep myself on short rein, I tell myself this far, and no farther, and it will be fine. Everything will be fine. Just don’t look. Don’t touch. Stop thinking about the kiss. Stop it. Stop stop  _ stop _ . But you saw everything. Every tryst, every idle fantasy, every last wicked-”

“Link.”

He stops.

“Come here.”

He whimpers.

He obeys.


	6. Chapter 6

Link takes a knee before her, bowing low as he can fold himself.

Zelda hitches herself closer to him, brushing his soft hair out of his eyes and coaxing him to raise his head, even a little. “Listen to me. You must promise to answer honestly.”

“Always, Princess.”

“Do you think less of me because I witnessed some of these small pleasures you allowed yourself?”

“Never,” he says sharply, without hesitation.

“Then why are you so convinced it is any different for me?”

He sighs mightily. “Because you wouldn’t have had to see them but for my weakness, my shameful lust.”

Zelda echoes his sigh, still cradling his face in her hands, though he will not raise his eyes. His skin is fever-hot. “Will you listen to my truth?”

“Anything you wish, princess.”

“Day and night we fought to keep the Calamity in check, and the emptiness where you once had been gnawed at me. I learned how to hold the Light and still watch Hyrule. I fought to keep hold of  _ myself _ . I was so happy when I felt you begin to stir. When you were in distress or pain, I had to look. I couldn’t help, and the first time you almost died in battle I almost - if not for his strength, I might have broken. But I watched, we waited, and you rose again. So  _ of course _ I looked when you felt delight or even  _ contentment _ .”

Link cringes.

“I wasn’t trying to spy. I just wanted to enjoy seeing you happy. Yes, I was startled at first, but I could  _ never _ begrudge you the pleasure. There is so much I still don’t know, but I learned to understand more with time, and he helped when I felt jealous of people who got to make you smile and - and  _ things _ . I tried to give you privacy as much as I could, but even so I couldn’t always resist leaving my spirit open to at least a  _ little _ of your feelings. Thunder would laugh at me for it, but he would also help with that. It’s so hard to sit here right now, touching your skin like I daydreamed about and not be able to sense your heart even a little.”

Link knelt in silence, working his jaw. 

_ If I didn’t love you, maybe it would be different. I don’t know. I can’t imagine not missing you though. Should I tell you? No, it would be horrible of me. You would feel obligated. Duty-bound. You even said, lust is not love. And Thunder was emphatic that the feeling isn’t always within control, either. If I said it now - you would surely feel you oath and your physical feelings require you to say the same but - oh the things you  _ **_have_ ** _ said today make my heart race. _

“Thunder,” says Link at last.

“Oh - yes it does sound crazy, doesn’t it?” Zelda laughs nervously and sinks back onto her heels, releasing him in part because she  _ needs _ to fidget. She is mortified to have slipped. “I didn’t name all of them, mostly it was the coherent ones. Bats and Snick, Dumpling - partly to annoy him - and Curls, Red and Blue. Those two were pretty unstable. I think of them like the old proverb about the saint and the demon on your shoulder, advising virtue or vice - except both of them were demonesses of different flavors. By the Three but they were  _ hilarious _ sometimes though. And the puns! They’d even give you a sealious challenge. It was very hard, alone in the dark and - and I don’t want to think about it. I started hearing the voices and I - I was probably imagining them for company. Me, the  _ scientist _ , living in a greasy black cloud of hate with my hoard of imaginary friends. And one of them was Thunder.”

Link finally looks up at her, pain and worry and compassion filling his vivid blue eyes. “It sounds like he was a comforting presence.”

“He was,” confesses Zelda. “I miss him. They say a child’s imaginary friends go away when she doesn’t need them anymore, so I guess that’s why I - don’t hear voices now. I thought it would be a little while of living Outside though. Not  _ five minutes. _ ”

“I am glad you had a friend at your side.”

“You - don’t think it sounds crazy? Your princess talking to figments for a century?”

“I have seen - and done - too many crazy things to not believe your Thunder and all the rest are - or at least were - real,” he says simply.

“Oh - he wasn’t  _ mine _ \- I mean, if I imagined him, yes, but not like  _ that _ . It wasn’t - ok, maybe I  _ did _ have imaginary friends, but I  _ certainly _ wouldn’t concoct an imaginary  _ boyfriend _ ,” Zelda hurries to say, waving away the foolish thought. Unfortunately in the process she remembers the strange fizzy, blurry, prickly warmth Thunder shared with her in the darkness, how he would hold her steady, and the profound comfort it was when his spirit held hers even when she felt strong again. She feels hot and flustered.

Link is silent. 

“I think,” she amends weakly.

Link chokes on an almost-laugh, turning it into a cough.

Zelda decides she will be suspicious of  _ every _ cough of his going forward. She sighs.

Link hesitantly reaches for her hand. “I am  _ glad _ you had a friend at your side, dearest Princess. I will be happy to hear more of him whenever you wish. I’m sure he’s just as sorry he isn’t with you now.”

It is Zelda’s turn to bow her head in embarrassment. “In the darkness - there were no limbs or flesh or hugs. But there was a - a feeling, when spirits touched, and I have no words for it except it was  _ like _ being held. Sortof.”

“That is good,” says Link softly.

“He would call me bluebird,” murmurs Zelda.

“It is a good name,” he says with a smile in his voice. “Beautiful, feisty things, more clever than most people want to credit.”

Zelda sighs. “Can we be ok now? I really do like when you hold me, and I don’t think I can sleep alone after - after the dark.”

“Oh,” says Link, genuinely startled. “You are tired, of  _ course _ you are tired - I should have made you a bed earlier instead of selfishly idling in your sunshine - hold on, I will just put the food away-”

“That’s not what I meant. I mean - I  _ am _ a little weary, but still hungry. I just wish you would stop beating yourself over a thing that is not a thing,” she says, pressing his hand. “Also hugs. And what is the surprise dessert? You haven't showed me anything very sweet, unless one counts carrots, which one  _ doesn't _ count because carrots are practically health food.”

Link laughs.

It is a good laugh.

Warm and artless and making her insides move again in that strange taut way.

He rises to fetch two little wooden boxes from beside Darcy’s saddle and tack. He kneels to lay both before her, but he taps the lid of one. “Open first.”

The scent of sugar and sweet essences rises the moment she cracks the wax seal to pry it open. It is cake. Fruitcake. Familiar and decadent and heavy, exactly as her mother once made when she was very small.

Zelda holds the box in her lap and weeps.

Link pulls a sharp, hissing breath through his teeth. His aimless beginnings of movements lack grace. He seems caught between going away and abasing himself further.

Zelda gestures wildly, because she cannot manage words. She tells him with her hands:  _ no, stop, come back, hold me. _

Link obeys.

He obeys  _ so well _ . He pulls her to his chest and pets her damp hair, cradling her as close as he ever did during the end of the old peace.

It is a long time before she is calm again.

Link holds her anyway.

Zelda moves the box of cake safely aside. “How did you know?”

“Know? More like  _ hoped _ . I found the recipe in the castle library when I was scouting months ago. A note said it was a favorite of yours. I made several before I came to fight Ganon directly. Left one at each stable, and with Purah, and the Great Deku, and at the Hateno house. There’s more in the slate. Might still be a couple in the sanctum if it didn’t collapse entirely.”

Zelda sniffles, and wraps her arms around him also. She feels awkward and uncertain, but he makes a little humming sound and squeezes her tight for a moment, pulling her back from her fears. “A present of cake everywhere I might go, in case I survived and you didn’t.”

“Yeah,” confesses Link, chagrined. “I wanted to - if you weren’t a trapped ghost after all - be sure a little happiness waited for you in the world, no matter what.”

“Thank you,” she says into his shoulder. “You  _ do _ realize that makes it  _ very hard _ to keep biting my tongue though? All these sweet, selfless, generous things you’re doing? How am I supposed to be  _ rational _ and  _ good _ in the face of that kind of rom-”

“No. I keep trying to tell you - it’s not  _ selfless _ at all,” he interrupts, trying to pull away. “It’s not about giving you time and work and things because  _ you _ want them. I want to please and serve because  _ it makes  _ **_me_ ** _ feel good  _ to make you happy.”

Zelda does not let go of him. “How is that  _ bad _ ? Why doesn’t that count? Who decided it’s only love if you’re  _ suffering _ to make the other person happy? What kind of horrible  _ love _ would prefer someone take no pleasure at all from the things that make oneself happy? How could anyone  _ decent _ be happy when their beloved is miserable?”

“I - I don’t know. I guess because - you never wanted me there in the first place. Even when things changed and you liked my company ok in my old life, I had no hope that you would love me in return. Princesses do not fall in love with knights,” he says, and his dear sweet baritone is rough and strained with feeling.

Zelda untangles her arms because that is the only way she can catch his smooth, sharp jaw in her hands and pull him close enough to kiss.

He whimpers. He cups her shoulders oh-so-carefully.

When her body insists she stop for breath, she presses her forehead to his. She is not sure this is a thing normal people do, but it feels weirdly comforting anyway. “This one does.”

“Oh  _ Zelda _ ,” he breathes, one hand sliding up to thread his fingers in her hair under the sloppy chignon, the other down to rest at her waist.

“No more of shame and superstition and silence and deciding for me what I should feel,” she murmurs. 

“I can’t promise that.”

“Can you promise to  _ talk _ to me first before you act?”

“I can promise to try,” he says with a sigh, his fingers moving in gentle little circles.

“Ok,” she says, leaning in for another little kiss. “Share the cake with me, beloved?”

Link shivers. “As you wish, dearest princess.”

Zelda sighs.

Link pulls back to kiss her brow. “You will always be my princess, even if the only crown you ever choose to wear hereafter is woven of flowers.”


	7. Chapter 7

Morning finds them not with light but with rain. Zelda startles awake with the first breath of tiny, cold droplets sneaking through the lush canopy above to tickle her cheek. For a few anxious breaths she imagines she hears a mournful sigh, but it is only the wind playing with the ragged banners above the field. Link does not stir, still slumped against the fat beech tree, one hand resting on the blessed sword sheathed at his side, the other on her back. 

Her heart slows again, and she lays still, letting the delicate rainfall bead upon her skin and hair and the layered wool blankets and cloaks draping her - and her beloved champion. She rubs her cheek against his lambswool tunic. She listens to his heartbeat, and feels the pulse of her own where her ear is folded a little against his chest. She feels a third beat, but she cannot be sure she does not imagine it, for it matches the little gusts of sprinkling rain.

Across the curve of his chest, she can just barely see the bright petals of the silent princess bloom unfurling to catch the misting rain. He said half a dozen more were growing in the ruins of her old workroom. He’d coaxed this smallest one into the wooden box, dirt and all, just before entering the sanctum. Somehow it survived riding in its box, tucked in a bag slung across his back throughout the battle. Another intensely sentimental thing for the stoic knight to greet her with if she lived, and to mourn her with if she didn’t. 

Now that she is awake, the water is not so cold after all.  _ Sharing blankets with Link is just - halfway to curling up inside an oven. How could I forget that part? I remembered his strength and the strange gentleness of his touch. I remembered the smooth and comforting tone of his voice on the rare occasions he did speak. I spent a hundred years thinking about everything between us, and especially the months between that disastrous pilgrimage to the Spring of Power and the End. How could I forget the warmth? _

Link sighs softly in his sleep, and for a few heartbeats, his hand tightens around her shawl and he pulls her closer. It feels good. It feels right. 

Zelda mourns the fact their world had to end for them to have this peace. She wonders what would have become, if they had triumphed over Calamity a century ago. Even if the guardians were still fated to become corrupted and deadly, she wonders what would have happened if the Champions had been able to keep the Blights at bay long enough to activate the power of the divine beasts and restrain Calamity Ganon until Link could finish Him.  _ If he had been able to prevail then, would the sealing power have ever come to me? Would I have been able to at least summon that sacred bow? _

_ No.  _

_ Because Thunder taught me half the magic I used in the end. He helped open weaknesses in the Malice. The incantations I learned in the darkness resembled nothing in our ancient records. _

_ I am here, we are here, not because of gods but because of ghosts _ .

“Mmnrf. Nnff? Mmnprincess?” Link stirs, his hand sliding up her back to touch her hair, his muscles tensing all over.

“Morning,” says Zelda softly, hoping her voice doesn’t betray tears. She tightens her arm around his trim waist.

His other hand leaves the blessed sword to brush her cheek instead. “Mnrrn. ‘Nother bad dream? You ok?”

“Yeah,” says Zelda. “I was just thinking.”

“Ok,” says Link, smoothing tears and raindrops from her cheek. The misting rain continues, but it is so soft she cannot mind it. “Wanna talk?”

“Maybe later,” she says with a shrug, pressing herself closer to him, even though she feels the uncomfortable prickly warning of sweat rising under her skin. She wonders what it would be like without half a dozen layers of wool and linen between. “Where do we go from here, Link? The Calamity ruled our lives from the time we were children. What do we do now that it’s over? The kingdom is shattered. Everyone I knew is long dead except you and Impa and Purah. How do we  _ live _ without  _ purpose _ ?”

Link grunts softly, and falls silent.

Zelda sighs.  _ I guess I could just lay here forever. It feels nice. Except - my leg is falling asleep. How completely stupid. _

“I don’t know what to tell you,” he confesses. “The sword,  _ her _ purpose is to seal the darkness, and she did choose me to carry her. But she did not summon me into this life. You did.  _ My _ purpose was always  _ you _ , dearest princess. Wherever you want to go, I go.”

“What about your house?”

He shrugs. “What about it?”

“That had nothing to do with the Calamity, but you worked hard to see it restored. You did a lot of things you didn’t  _ have _ to, so surely you  _ wanted _ to do them? Don’t you want your warm little house?”

Link hums in thought.

“Aren’t you sad to leave it behind when you’re on the road?”

“Maybe a little. Mostly it was nice to have a place to… I don’t know. Come back to. I have a hard time remembering where my parents’ village was, or what our house really looked like in my old life. Just little pieces. The rug in momma’s sitting room. The smell of the lamp oil. The little corner kitchen just like a thousand others, except the cabinet doors and drawers were painted blue. I remember I went with papa to the capital for the first time in summer, and his friends let me borrow a real sword while he was with the Captain. It was fun at first. I didn’t know I was doing anything weird yet.”

“Before the Forest and the blessed sword?”

“Yeah. That was later. They let me keep the plain sword and made me a squire. After that, we only went back to the village for holidays. Momma didn’t like that, but after the forest and stuff we moved to the castle. I remember those rooms better. Blue and white dishes. Stripe-and-triangle rugs. Weapons racks in the main room. Flowers - momma grew flowers in the little window.”

“You were just a  _ kid _ ,” says Zelda, gazing back through a haze of old grief to see the solemn boy bringing a sacred relic into the sanctum, looking at her with no expression whatever, accepting her insults in silence, sleeping on his feet outside her door.

“So were you,” he says with a shrug, and a yawn. “Want some tea?”

Zelda starts to object, but her stomach rumbles before she can form any words.

Link laughs. “I will make breakfast too. Eggs with cheese?”

“Ok.”

Link pets her hair. “Princess.”

“Hm?”

“You have to let go first.”

“Mmno,” she says petulantly, holding him tighter. It is petty, and counterproductive, and she knows it.  _ But he is warm and comfortable and I don’t want to! _

Link whimpers and shifts in a strange way, half-turning and raising his knee.

Zelda sighs.

She relents, disappointed that he escapes her arms at once to revive their fire and bury himself in the work of feeding them both. She takes his place sitting against the tree, watching him work. His face is first pink, then pale, then pink again, and he does not meet her eye again until breakfast is decimated and the tea is half gone.

“The slate says it will rain most of today. Do you want me to build the tent or catch you a horse? I could bring Gustav from Woodland Stable, or Rhea from Wetland Stable, but even pushing them hard, I wouldn’t be back until tomorrow night. If you’d rather try Darcy, I can take a wild mare for me.”

“Where are we going?”

“Anywhere you like,” he says with a shrug, glancing up through his loose fringe of damp golden hair. “But we should get you out of the rain.”

“It’s really not that bad. I don’t mind,” she begins, thinking of how many times she watched him endure far worse conditions than this.

“Tent then?”

“Will you stay with me under it?”

“As you wish,” he says, blushing again and averting his eyes.

“Will you kiss me again?”

Link draws a sharp breath. “Princess - I - not right now, ok? Later.”

Zelda raises a brow, suspicious.

“ _ Later _ ,” he pleads. “I need some time. I’m sorry. I’m not - look, mornings with you are going to be hard for me for a while. Maybe longer than a while.”

Zelda sighs. “Will you come back and hold me after?”

“After?” Link frowns, tipping his head in a moment of charming bafflement - followed by shock, and his smooth cheeks blooming bright and hot. “Oh.”

Zelda slouches against the tree and tries to take comfort in her mug of tea.

He lays a gentle hand on her knee. “Don’t be hurt, please. I just - need time. This feels different than with anyone else. Not just because of what we’ve been. I need to figure things out. I wasn’t prepared for this, and I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’m not made of glass,” Zelda grumbles.

“No,” he agrees, rubbing a small circle over the blanket. “But you don’t just want a kiss.”

It is Zelda’s turn to feel hot and fidgety.

“I don’t mean  _ that _ ,” he says in a hurry. “My father taught me how to see when someone wants more than adventure. I stay away from people who feel that way about me most of the time because - I mostly  _ don’t _ feel those things, and I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

Zelda frowns in thought. “I hadn’t thought about it that way, but Prince Sidon did feel kindof like the snow-racing feeling. Adventure. Hm. But what about Paya? You’re so gentle with her, and visit her often. She seems nice. ”

Link freezes, and al the color drains from his face. “Oh. Right.  _ Everything. _ ”

“Sorry,” says Zelda, deeply ashamed. “I liked feeling you happy.”

He coughs. He scrubs his face with his hand. “Ok, yes, Paya is different than others. And she is kind. But she doesn’t want - she knew from the beginning I wouldn’t stay all the time, and I couldn’t be only hers. She was ok with that - she has her own life, and I am still The Hero to her. She likes that, and even though she’s terribly shy, it’s exciting for her when I visit. I like helping her feel special, because she is. But it wouldn’t be good for her to live in my shadow all the time.”

“Do you think - she will be sad to learn about me? And how I feel for you?”

Link rocks back on his heels. “I don’t know. I - think I’ve been hoping you could be friends, if I could free you.”

“That would be nice,” says Zelda honestly. 

“It’s a different kind of love,” he says softly, clenching and unclenching his fists. “I don’t understand it. I’ve never felt for anyone else what I feel for you. Romantic stuff has never made much sense to me. Except - now you’re here, and real, and alive, and beautiful, and so very smart, and saying the things I do for you are  _ romantic _ and you  _ want _ me staying with you and I - I don’t know how to  _ be _ . I need time.”

“Okay,” says Zelda, laying a hand over his.

He sighs mightily. “So. Tent? Or road?”

“Depends on where we’d be going.”

Link shrugs. “Where do you want to go? The stables are just an in-between place, where we can be warm and dry, and get you nicer clothes and a gentle horse.”

_ Courage, bluebird. _

Zelda startles, looking over her shoulder even though the faint whisper certainly couldn’t have come from the beech tree behind her.

“What’s wrong-?”

“Did you hear anything? Just now?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t,” he says with a shake of his head. “A warning? A bird? Danger?”

Lightning cracks across the grayness above the misty rolling hills of the plain beyond their little grove. A few breaths later the rumble sweeps over them. Link pulls out the slate with a deep frown. He swears, and shows her the meter in the corner of the map screen. Light rain is ripening into heavy storm, and likely to stay that way.

Zelda frowns at the stormclouds. “Nothing like that. Maybe I am still tired and imagining things. Warm sounds nice but - I’m not sure what to say to people.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” he counters with a shrug, returning the slate to his belt.

“I’m not like you that way,” she says with a wry laugh. She sets aside her empty mug. “But I would like to see your house myself. If that’s ok.”

Link draws a deep breath, hesitating.

“I can help with the tent while you think about it? Where is a good place out of the mud? Above the spring?”

Link blushes and coughs  _ again _ . Zelda is not sure why he should be embarrassed by a practical question, but she is learning that mysterious, deep passions lay beneath his silences, and every glimpse intrigues her further. “Hateno is almost a month away.”

“Ok,” says Zelda, uncertain why this matters. The storm is moving closer, the rain growing heavier every minute.

“My house is small.”

“I know.”

“It’s not fancy.”

“I know that, Link. When have you ever known me to be moved by  _ fancy _ ?”

“Other places, people will mind their own business,” he says worrying his lip. “At home, people will - notice you. With me. They will ask.”

“The truth would be a bit strange, I agree. I suppose I could be my own granddaughter,” says Zelda with a wry laugh.

Link grins. “Fair. People are always saying I look ‘like the hero was said to look back then’ and I just kinda - smile and nod.”

“Good plan. So - there’s another lightning flash. Tent or road?”

Link worried at his lip. “If we build the tent, will you be ok while I go to Hateno by rune? Just for a few hours? For better clothes? I will leave the ruby circlet with you, to stay warm even without the fire.”

“Kiss first.”

Link blushes again.

“For science,” says Zelda primly. “I only have data on nighttime kisses. I have yet to measure a daytime kiss.”

Link rubs the back of his neck with a nervous chuckle.

“Well. A rainy-day kiss, anyway.”

He laughs. He crawls closer.

It is many minutes before they speak again.

“Dearest princess - you will catch a cold,” he murmurs in her ear. “Tent. Before the storm gets any worse.”

“Promise you’ll be back before dark?”

“I promise. And when the rain is done, we’ll go home.”

“I  _ am _ home,” says Zelda, kissing his cheek.


End file.
